


love is a selfish thing (it'll feed off the wounds that bleed)

by theformerone



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythology, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 06:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: She smiles at him, this girl made of spring and leaves. He doesn't know what she is, but he knows the forest won't be the same now that she's in it.for shikasaku day 1 prompt; daylight so violent





	love is a selfish thing (it'll feed off the wounds that bleed)

Daylight burns Shikamaru. It always has. When he was a little thing, just born, his mother had held his hand out in the early dawn, right when their time in the world was ending. She shushed him as he whimpered, held the top of his head with the tenderness a doe shows her fawn, and she let the light mutilate him. 

It was a rite they all had to go through. His mother's left hand sported the thin line of the sunscar her father gave her. Shikamaru's wound is just as long, if not a bit jagged. He had wiggled too much, tried to squirrel his way out of his mother's loving arms even as she murmured that she loved him, but he had to understand what he was, what they all were. 

Shikamaru is older now. When he leaves their den at night to tend to the animals of the forest, he knows how much time he has to get back before he burns. He can tell by when the owls wake up and go to sleep. He can tell by the way the stags twitch their tails, their own rest slowly ending. He can tell by the flowers that grow and shrink by daylight.

He is a servant of the moon, and when the work is over, he follows her call home, as she shifts and bends in the night, curving over the sky, telling him the work is over, and now is the time for rest, for safety.

The weather changes often in the forest. Some days it is summer, some nights winter rumbles in with blankets of snow and no warning. Shikamaru whispers to the plants, encouraging them to grow or to tuck back into the earth. He leaves blankets of spidersilk he spins himself over the smallest young of the forest, the ones that have no mothers to burrow into, the ones that fend for themselves.

It would be easier to ask the spiders to spin for him; their silk is stronger, and is spun much faster. But Shikamaru doesn't want to bother them, and besides, if his blankets are warm enough to keep himself cozy through the nights, then an orphaned bear cub will appreciate them all the same. Even if she does try to eat it when she wakes up.

He smiles at the little thing, chances a scratch between her ears. She's a red panda, beautiful and vibrantly red, tail curled over her nose to keep her warm. Shikamaru could smell her mother on her, but couldn't see her. Knowing that much calmed him a bit; recently abandoned, or not an orphan at all. Or this cub was recently an adult, and had just left her mother's side.

She was too small for that to Shikamaru, but he could fatten her up if he planted new bamboo shoots near her little den. They'd grow in a day's time or less, and the cub would be grateful to get bigger before the next inevitable winter morning came. 

Shikamaru rises, turning his ear to the sky. He can't hear the moon moving, per se, but he could feel her cool light, and he could feel the places where her shadow was receding to dawn. It was all the same. He was finished here for tonight. 

"That was awful sweet of you."

Shikamaru's neck nearly snaps to face his intruder. Not on the ground in front of him, but up, in a nearby fig tree, sitting on a branch, but still hovering above it. Her pale skin seems to glow in the moonlight, long pink hair falling in long waves over her shoulders, down long enough that if Shikamaru reached out, he could touch it. The smell of springtime comes off of her in wafts; the smell of cool air, of rain, of dead things punching through the earth to grow again. 

Figs blossom where she hovers over the branch, leaves unfurling, fruit growing ripe then falling off the tree below her, parting the waves of her hair. She's dressed as simply as he is, in clothes that are made from bark and leaves, pelts and spidersilk. Like antlers grow from Shikamaru's head, flowers seem to bloom from hers. On her forehead is a pale purple diamond, and Shikamaru's eyes widen. 

That was the mark of Tsunade, only scion of Hashirama, who ruled all forests, and the goddess of healing in her own right. This strange girl was one of Tsunade's few disciples, then. Different than Shizune, who ruled over poisons and merciful death.

She smiles at him, this girl made of spring and leaves. He doesn't know what she is, but he knows the forest won't be the same now that she's in it.

"Who are you?" 

Her smile widens into a laugh, one that she doesn't cover her mouth when she releases it. 

"I know who you are," she says, kicking her legs above him. "You are Shikamaru, only son of Shikaku, lord of wildlife, anointed protector of Hashirama's forests. And of Yoshino, she-who-moves-in-shadow."

Shikamaru narrows his eyes. "Who sent you?"

She reaches out a finger beneath her and plucks a tiny fig that fattens between her fingers. She takes a prim bite out of it, and the bite she takes reforms in seconds. 

"There's a war been going on in your domain for some time now, couldn't you tell?"

The summer and winter bickering between day and night, threatening the wildlife, and Shikamaru's own family; yes, he had seen it, yes he could tell. 

"Well it's not so much as a war as it is my brothers playing chicken," she explains. She tosses the fig to Shikamaru, who catches it out of the air like its arc was designed to reach him. He wonders if that's her influence. "They aren't aware they're in love yet."

"Your brothers are in love with each other?" 

The girl shrugs. 

"Siblings in the pantheon only," she explains, winking at him. "You get it."

That much was true. Even though Ino ruled over growing things and thoughts-of-all-kinds, she was more or less his cousin because his father ruled over the boars that protected her family. Hinata and Neji might as well have been his siblings, considering they all rose and fell with the moon. While they watched over her with their far-seeing-eyes, Shikamaru worked under her sight. 

"They are summer and winter," she says, twirling a bit of hair around her finger. "Constantly chasing each other. Constantly undermining each other. Now it seems like their foolishness is starting to hurt your forest, and for that I am sorry, as for that, I was sent."

"Did Hashirama send you?"

She scoffs at that, levering herself from her hovering place on the tree branch and extending to her full height. She floats down to the ground, still floating a few inches above it. Shikamaru can understand why; if her aura was strong enough to grow things, he wondered what her touch could do. 

"Tsunade is my teacher, and rules over healing. I've come to heal your forest, and drag my brothers back home so they can stop ruining things." 

Shikamaru nods, gears in his head turning. 

"If they are winter and summer, what is your domain?"

She smiles at him again, and for the flicker that happens when he blinks, he can see something just behind her. Something all black, but glowing a faint white just as she does. A copy of her, from her hair to her clothes, to the way she doesn't touch the ground. The black-skinned version of her smiles when she sees him, and her teeth are sharper than any animal Shikamaru has come across in this forest that covers the world. 

"I am spring," she replies.

"And autumn," Shikamaru surmises, his gaze still hovering just a bit over her shoulder. A pair of twins, then? Or one being, with dualities, who flipped between the two, depending on what was required of her. Spring when things needed to be born, autumn when things needed to die. 

She beams at him, and the light from her smile is like the light that burned Shikamaru's hand when he was just a boy. But the burn heals as it hurts, there and gone again with each moment her teeth are flashing in the moonlight. 

"My name is Sakura," she says. "It's nice to meet you."


End file.
